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Losing Paradise

13/04/202613/04/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

“The Mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven”

John Milton Paradise Lost – Book 1

There are simultaneous galactic games of chess in progress between black and white. These games are happening simultaneously on multiple levels with many participants. A move on one board affects another game in unseen ways.

On 1^st April 2026 NASA launched a rocket named Orion as part of the Artemis II Mission to send humans to the moon and back. This is happening at the same time as the Zionist government of Israel and the United States government are conducting an undeclared illegal war against Iran, Russia is continuing to pummel Ukraine and China has it’s eyes on Taiwan.

Which of these has the world’s attention? It’s probably all of these but the Artemis II misdirection has certainly captured the attention of many. Everyone likes space rockets.

In a chess game on another level, rockets have another significance. They can be seen as a torch, a cylinder which produces light and flame. This has always fascinated humans for it is the oldest of all technologies; fire. The Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, New York is of course holding a torch as a symbolic beacon. It was intended to guide travellers to a place where individual freewill flourishes. A torch is also symbol of light and enlightenment as in the ancient Olympic Games.

*The Winter Olympic Games 2026 picture credit The Independent*

A rocket belches out fire from below, not above like a torch. The rockets of space exploration and war are inverted torches of freedom and as a rule ‘turning upside down’ represents Satanic forces at work.

The Pentagon in Washington is perhaps one of the most infamous sources of power, along with the secret societies.

But some occultists work in plain sight and leave clues. The Orion rocket is 322 feet tall, which is the number of the Yale secret society, the Skull and Crossed Bones. This is not a club. It has members in powerful places including past Presidents Howard Taft and the Bushes, Senior, and Junior. ‘Bonesmen’ are sworn to secrecy. Perhaps the crossed bones references the symbol ‘X’ of Elon Musk’s social media platform and SpaceX programme?

Esoteric ‘programmes’ are time critical, as the spell must be performed on the right day on the annual calendar and hour of the day. The launch of the Orion rocket in the Artemis11 programme was originally 26th March 2026. This is a significant date in the Wiccan calendar and is a few days after OSTARA or the spring equinox. Note the word o-STAR-a or Easter. It is significant because it is the midpoint between Inbolc and Beltane or Candlemas and Mayday. It marks when there are equal amounts of light and darkness in the day and when the solar activity begins to ascend until the summer solstice.

At the time of Ostara we feel the powerful energy of nature rising and nature starting a new solar year…as 1st April was once, before being moved by Pope Gregory XIII to the first of January. April is a time of balance, two sides of a central point as in the three stars of ‘Orion’s belt’. To return to Earth on 11th April is to pass between two pillars or a gate II. As the spacecraft is called Orion could this be intended to represent Orion’s Gate, an ancient cosmic gateway through which souls journeyed to attain higher wisdom?

The launch was postponed for we are told, technical reasons until 1st April at 6.35pm Eastern Time or 11.35pm BST. This coincides precisely with the Jewish Passover which happened this year between the evening of 1st April and 9th April. The story of Passover in Exodus describes how God ordered Moses to tell the Israelites to slaughter a lamb and mark their doorframes with it’s blood and then eat unleavened bread for seven days. This informed the ‘destroying angel’ to pass over that particular household. Is humanity being warned of another plague or destruction?

In 1972, Apollo 17 landed humans on the surface of the moon for the first time. The logo for the Apollo programme curiously features the constellation Orion. The S shape curve creates an uncanny resemblance to the Yin / Yang symbol of the east, which symbolises the balance of nature and a non-binary philosophy where male and female are complimentary, not opposite.

The gods Orion and Artemis were male and female archetypal hunters. If you wonder why the Apollo lunar programme was named after a sun god, perhaps it is because Artemis has a twin brother named after ‘the light of the world’… Apollo. His myth narrates that he challenged Artemis to shoot an arrow at an object in the sea which unbeknown to her, was Orion’s head. In his memory she fixed Orion in the stars as the constellation we see today.

We might question the use of ancient Greek and Roman names by a scientific establishment such as NASA. The West embraces scientific materialism as a philosophy of life. Excursions away from material centred ideas are unexpected. A large number of the constellations were named as mythical gods and creatures by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. In the 18th and 19th centuries some were named after scientific instruments. There is evidence that this practice started in the Middle Ages with the astrolabe. Does this represent a conflict between the opposing world views of archetypal symbols and materialism?

Clearly the ancient understanding of astronomy and magic has been overshadowed but occultists and Freemasons have retained this ancient knowledge of symbols even as scientific materialism took over.

At the foundation of NASA there are two influential figures who understood and used the power of symbols and ritual.

The first was Jack Parsons who in the 1930’s set up the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and developed the rocket technology in use even today. He achieved this with no formal education.

Parsons had a deep interest in the Occult and Satanism and was a one-time follower of the famous British Occultist ‘The Beast 666’, also known as Alastair Crowley. Parsons was a friend of the founder of the church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard as they shared an interest in the occult. Note the similarity between the above NASA Apollo (above) and Artemis (below) logos and the European Scientology logo; the S shape over or through pyramids in a universal circle. The circle of stars on a blue background is a clear reference to Europa.

There is a resemblance between the words Satan and Saturn suggesting a poetic connection. Satan is the force that holds humans in the material world until Saturn as ‘Old Father Time’ sweeps his scythe. He is the Titan Chronos or ‘time’. Saturn is alchemically the metal lead and we feel this sometimes as gravity. In space, crews temporarily escape Earth’s the tyranny the ‘lead boots’ feel of a material human body. As astronauts theoretically reach almost the speed of light time, slows down and in theory stops.

The second important figure in NASA’s creation was the Nazi rocket scientist Werner von Braun. He designed the rocket used in the Apollo programme named appropriately the Saturn V rocket. When the second world war ended in 1945 he went to the USA with other prominent German scientists in a programme named Operation Paperclip. The Nazi regime had been sending untargeted V2 rockets to London and other cities. There is evidence that the Germans also had advanced technology including anti-gravity spacecraft. This was eagerly seized by the Allied countries after the fall of the Reich and led to the ‘space race’ in the following years, including the ‘Star Wars’ programme under the Ronald Regan administration and the Strategic Arms Agreements.

In another game of chess, the ‘torch bearer’ or Lucifer, is an angel who was cast out of heaven by the Almighty for daring to challenge His absolute power. The Bible conflates Lucifer with Satan but the two are not the same. There are twin stories of a battle between a sun god and a serpent monster, Satan and Lucifer. The former is a Saturn external world snake and the latter an internal world, Venus snake. The Venus snake has a tricky quality represented on the chess board by the knight’s move. It is the unreal and unexpected; the trigger of unintended consequences.

We see numerous connections with Earth’s beautiful sister planet, Venus. The symbol V (for Venus) keeps appearing on the mission logos and the Saturn V rocket. Artemis in all her glory appears to humans as the morning or evening star Venus at different times in the year. The V shape may also be the set square of the Freemasons or when inverted, a pair of compasses.

The United States of America was founded by Freemasons such as George Washington in 1876 and it’s 250th anniversary is in 2026. The freemason’s understood symbolism and it’s power in ritual to express and manage the forces of light and darkness

As a general point, there appears to me a present-day schism between the material and the non-material worlds, of matter and energy. Humanity is being torn apart by the (Satanic) process of craving comfortable, material lifestyles that Earth can no longer sustain. In New Age philosophy and in the Dolores Canon canon, sensitive souls are presently leaving the material planet for a ‘new Earth’, or in the metaphor of this essay, ‘chess in another dimension’.

We cannot deny that strange coincidences can be found in NASA’s evolving story that link it to the hidden and unexplained. One of NASA’s best known astronauts in Apollo 11 was Buzz Aldrin. He happened to be a Scottish Rite 33^rd degree Freemason. He was the second man on the moon after Neil Armstrong, and he followed that ‘giant leap for mankind’ onto the silver surface of the moon where he conducted a masonic ritual and founded a Lunar Lodge.

Today’s high priests of technology and private and commercial space programmes are Elon Musk with Starship designed by SpaceX and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin.

Both are not apparently concerned with sustaining a reasonable standard of living for bodies and souls currently on planet earth. When Musk oversaw the U.S. Department for Government Efficiency, one of his costs cutting measures was to reduce funding of USAid by 90%.

There has appeared in human society around the world a group who are referred to as the ‘one per cent’. They are extraordinarily wealthy and appear to have little compassion for others less fortunate, mirroring the Court of King Louis XIV, self-styled sun King who built an opulent palace in Versailles whilst his subjects starved. This apparent disdain for life and the common good has been a hall mark of the line of the Frankish Merovingian royal bloodline. It is present in the anti-human rights and freedom policies of a growing number of right wing politicians around the world today.

The emergence of the power of rockets as agents of exploration and destruction, in my view represents the last gasp of male energy that has unbalanced the progress of humanity for thousands of years. What we see in the growing Aquarian Age is a blooming presence of a feminine energy; softer and more compassionate.

Apollo’s sister Artemis, embodies this femininity. It is a difficult balance needed between red and blue which, in my view, has been historically suppressed by male leaders. The death of the late Princess Diana (the roman name for Artemis) was a sad loss for humanity. ‘Death without mercy’ is typical of the ancient Merovingian bloodline energy. Under the Pont d’Alma where Diana died is a replica of the flaming torch from the Statue of Liberty. One of Diana’s aims in this world, was to remove the deadly remnants of war – land mines – a perfect example of light extinguishing darkness.

picture credit: NASA

The five parts of the symbol of the Artemis II mission, feature an inverted capital A as in to the Apollo mission logo. Interestingly the central bar of the letter A has been removed so what is shown is an inverted V. The last of five Artemis missions to the moon will be Artemis V. As well as a ‘loving’ Venus reference, in numerology the number 5 represents balance and harmony so an inverted V suggests a disharmony. In the Artemis logo left, the V stands over the north pole of an unsmiling blue arc represents the planet Earth. Through the pyramid curves a red line suggesting that if this unhappy Earth is feminine, the S shaped curve is masculine but they no longer balance as in the Apollo logo above. The red line connects with a white sphere representing the moon which is half eclipsed by the top of the pyramid. If you look carefully, you will see a white line eclipsing the left side of the letter R. Red, white and blue? Liberty, Equality, Fraternity? Who knows. Perhaps May Day 2026 is a time for revolution.

Artemis I was launched without a crew, understandably for safety reasons but possibly also to prove that for scientific study, a crew is not needed. Just sending one jar of Nutella one astronauts luxury, is costing tens of thousands of dollars. There are many other obvious advantages to unmanned scientific missions. Scientists in the 1970’s wanted the Apollo missions to be unmanned but politics of the day demanded maned missions. The decision to send a three man and one-woman crew in Artemis II suggests a political motive again. Two men and two women astronauts would have been a better balance!

This theme of the two extremes represented by male and female, light and darkness, extends over the chequer board of space time. Personally, I hope mankind never reaches the exhausted masculine planet of war Mars, and instead learns from the feminine lunar missions that planets eventually degrade into Wastelands if not sustained by love. The reflections of astronauts from this and previous missions describe how inspirational the view of Earth is from far away.

It’s like going on holiday and longing for home.

This blue planet is a paradise not to lose,

but one to find.

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Word War

31/03/202601/04/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

*picture credit: Domestic Violence Co-ordinating Council / Delaware / USA*

Is it wrong for a victim to commit a crime against their abuser?

Consider a wife who has suffered various kinds of abuse over many years from her husband. One day she picks up a kitchen knife and stabs him to death. You have seen this story in movies and books many times and one is always split between compassion for the victim and condemnation of their crime of murder.

Now chose a word to describe the action of wife;

Attack? Defence? Pre-emptive? Revenge? Anger? Terrorism?

Most courts would find the wife guilty of murder. Her defence of ‘self-defence’ or ‘after years of abuse’, would be considered as mitigating circumstances and might reduce the sentence significantly.

When children fight they will commonly defend themselves with an accusation; ‘so and so started it.’

They might have been a peaceable victim who was attacked by a bully. In most ethical standards and laws, a violent act permits self defence by the victim. If the bully claimed to have attacked in order to prevent being attacked this is unlikely be regarded as permissible unless the victim had made to strike and the bully blocked the attack before striking back. Children can confuse adults with this simple excuse or ‘defence’ for violence and so do modern leaders!

The abused wife who retaliates in anger is like a country that has suffered abuse from a neighbouring state for many years. If brought to breaking point, the victim state will decide it has had enough of violent attacks and incursions onto their land. They will strike back. The question is, did the victim start the violence by objecting to abuse? Who ‘started it’ becomes almost impossible to define as the origin of the violence and the definition of the first act of violence is difficult to pin point. It probably wasn’t a single agressive act but multiple acts of passive aggression by either party.

In the eighteenth century, the United States of America slowly dispossessed and committed murder and land theft against the indigenous population as had done other European colonisers before them.

The State of Israel was created by occupying Colonial powers in 1945 from which point onwards to the present day, Israel land stole land from and murdered anyone who was in the way.

Are not both of these examples of the ‘wife-beating husband’ and a continuous ‘they started it’ mentality? How much provocation should original and entitled inhabitants suffer before fighting invaders?

Today the Zionist government in Israel is trying to persuade the world that those who fight back against the genocide of Palestinians, are ‘terrorists’.

Over the decades the words ‘Jewish’ and ‘anti-Semite’ have become used as if by an innocent abused wife. It is certainly a fact that Jewish people have had a hard time through out modern and ancient history. They have been the victims of violent and non-violent abuse in many countries culminating in their attempted genocide by the National Socialist government of Germany in the early 20^th century.

When the Zionist government uses the defence today of ‘he started it’, the first question is when it started (certainly not on October 7th 2021) and how to reach a peaceful conclusion for this unhappy hostorical marriage of Jews and Palestinians.

The child in the playground who shouts ‘he started it’ does not realise that there are almost always passive options to violence, even if it is public humiliation or martydom. The Christians will tell you stories about this of their ‘turn the other cheek’ Messiah being murdered by the Jews of that time.

The Zionist government of Israel and the United States of America defend their invasions of Arab states over the last few decades by claiming that they are the innocent victims of ‘terrorism’. But who are the true terrorists?

A short detour to examine the word ‘terrorism’ is required. All violence creates fear in the victim but is this terrorism? The term is defined as;

‘…the calculated use of violence, or threat of violence, against civilians or non-combatants to induce fear and coerce governments or societies to achieve political, religious, or ideological goals.’

This is a definition according to AI; so open that it also clearly defines ‘war’ in it’s modern form, with civilians victims rather than military targets. Therefore I believe that ‘terrorism’ is more than this definition. It omits to define who is using this violence against civilians? Is it a nation’s armed forces or a small group of political extremists such as the IRA or ETA in the twentieth century?

Today nation states are deploying their armed forces for extreme ideological goals outside of the international laws of War. By any definition, abandoning law is unlawful and therefore this is terrorism.

As we are examining words used in war, let us consider the difference between ‘killing’ and ‘murder’. You will often hear news reports that civilians have been ‘killed’ by missiles but is this more accurately ‘murder’?

The AI definition of murder is;

‘The unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.’

We are told that modern drones and missiles can hit targets with laser accuracy. And yet, photographs of Gaza today are almost identical to photographs of cities ‘carpet bombed’ in WW II.

So if a missile lands on a school or hospital killing civilians, is this a ‘mass murder’ or a ‘mass killing’ – verbally sanitised as ‘collateral damage’? There is clearly a legal question of whether the missile was intended to be launched and targetted so as to cause loss of innocent life.

A soldier killing an enemy soldier is lawful because each expect to fight each other to death but civilians have no such expectation.

Today countries such as the USA and Israel will argue that they do not respect International Law and Courts of Justice as a sort of ‘get out’ clause. Time will be the judge of this but history suggests they will need good lawyers.

Murdering innocent people should not be a subject for debate in countries that consider themselves ‘civilised’ but today leaders use words in such a way that they feel they can justify the most heinous crimes against humanity, by merely changing definitions. Trump has not declared war against Iran and his missiles and invading troops are a ‘military operation’. As there is ‘no war’ he argues that he does not need Congress to approve going to war on behalf of the people of the United States.

In my view, we all have a responsibility to understand not only what we are told but how we are being told it. Using language to alter truth exists in every language but our primary responsibility must surely be to not to manipulate language for

unholy ends.

You can quote me on this…when we do not stand up; we lie.

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The Democracy Spectrum

16/03/202616/03/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

If Democracy were a mental disorder each, and every country could be diagnosed as to where on the democracy spectrum their governmental policies lie. There are some countries who pay lip service to democratic rules and some who follow procedures to the letter. In between are the majority of countries and it’s a mix.

Democracy rules largely in the West, plus countries historically colonised by the West, and informs western self image that it’s political ways are superior to the rest of the world.

It is not easy to view objectively how this form of government operates in Europe and the United States of America. For instance in modern day Switzerland, the most important political decisions are decided directly by citizens through referendums. These may take place several times a year, swiftly and efficiently without fuss or interference. Citizens feel empowered because they are being included in important ‘course corrections’ of government. There is no pressure on a government to follow a manifesto on which they were elected; an expectation that fails to understand that sometimes the super tanker needs to change speed and direction when an iceberg moves into it’s path.

The ancient Greeks were of course the originators of ‘government by the people for the people’. The Platonic City was restricted in size by the number of citizens in a circular crowd who could hear an orator in their midst; a number calculated exactly to 5040.

Plato’s City picture credit: The Saturday Paper

This is called Direct Democracy, enabling individuals direct connection with those with the power to decide policy and law. In many ways it makes the most sense as each citizen has at least 1/5040 th influence on the destiny of their city state. In this way their loyalty to their nation would be expected to be very strong. They after all, are partly responsible for the consequences of the flaws and laws that effect their lives.

What inevitably usurped this system was the increase in the size of city States.

With increasing populations in large urbanisations, the Romans in particular gave citizens the right to vote for someone to represent their views, a Senator.

This is better in theory than in practice, for having given away their power to a third party, every citizen becomes disconnected to government. Senators may decide or be corrupted or bribed so as not to represent the views of those who elected them.

What contributed to the eventual downfall of the Western and Eastern Roman Empires were the Caesar’s who assumed control of all the power of the state, dictators. As well as fiddling the taxes and trade, Nero fiddled as Rome went up in flames.

At this point power has been completely removed from the influence of the general population and assumed by an individual acting in self interest, not the interest of the country and it’s citizens.

Again we have seen the rise of such dictators in governments in Western Europe and the United States of America in modern times.

So at the ‘dictator’ end of the democratic spectrum, there is no government of the people by the people. Politics has been reduced to one personality and a carefully vetted ‘hangers on’ who are absolutely loyal to the dictator.

These may be civilians who have gained power through wealth and influence in areas other than politics. Clearly this does not suit them in any way to a career in politics but that does not stop them for the reasons that entrepreneurs are natural risk takers and self believers. Failure in policy is unlikely to affect their lifestyle and they do not feel responsible for the well being of others, so they advise and influence in politics through a process of making mistakes.

The United States of America and the United Nations have a policy known as Democracy and Governance. The intention is to bring democracy to the countries of the world under autocratic rule. For the USA the Middle Eastern countries have been high on the list for DG transformation because of the natural resources and geographical location of countries such as Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia and others.

One of the first wars with Arab countries between the USA proxy in the region, Israel, was the Arab Israeli wars in 1948 and 1967.

The problem with promoting democracy in it’s many forms in the Middle Eastern Arab countries is cultural difference. Whilst the West may not like or approve of autocratic military leaders such as one time Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi or past Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, life without unpleasant self styled ‘revolutionary’ leaders like them has proved far worse for the citizens of those countries.

It is likely that the present ‘regime change’ in Iran will have similar unintended consequences for the ordinary citizens of Iran.

The consequences of ‘regime change’ in the United States of America at this time are impossible to predict. The once dependable institutions were intended benignly, to protect the constitutional rights of the individual citizen. These rights have slowly usurped democratic institutions set up to prevent autocratic rule, such as Supreme Court.

I write this with a partly wry smile knowing what comes next as far as democracy and freedom is concerned, in any country anywhere in the world. The future is already in the news in a story about a company called Anthropic.

Anthropic is described as a ‘safety and research company that’s working to build reliable, interpretable and steerable AI systems.’

It is currently in dispute with the government of the United States of America which wants full access to it’s systems for use in warfare without control by humans. Anthropic is refusing on grounds of this being unlawful and morally indefensible.

For as any child will tell you, a robot that has supreme power over humans is a bad idea. The 2004 film ‘I Robot’ was science fiction twenty years ago and reality today, if you call a drone a robot. Unless there is a ‘kill switch’ which is easily accessible to humans built into every autonomous device and humanoid, we are designing our own guillotines and artificial Robespierre’s.

At our present point in history we have choice to carry on fighting each other for whatever imagined reason…or stop.

To do this successfully will require an intention to give back power to the individual citizen, as in the original concept of democracy in Ancient Greece.

In serious legal trials this principle is still of vital importance and present as the jury of twelve citizens. The jury ensures that a diversity of view points consider the facts of a case without prejudice to the defendant and then a unanimous vote is required for conviction. Debate is encouraged and can take weeks but has been proven to be the most fair system yet devised in legal cases.

When government by the people is dismissed and an autocrat with strong personal views and belief takes over power, right minded citizens are reduced to nodding dogs.

Woof!

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I is for Ego

28/02/202601/03/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Like many I have often thought about the ‘ego’ and how it fits in with a contemporary search for spiritual enlightenment.

Ego is a term originating from Sigmund Freud and has a technical meaning in psychoanalysis which I shall not include in this essay as there are plenty of psychology books for those interested in a clinical version of the idea.

It’s common usage in English today is to mean that a person is vain and has an unjustified high opinion of themselves, however when we use the word to understand ourselves or ‘what makes us tick’, it has a more constructive purpose.

Ego is Latin for ‘I’ and this sense of ‘I’ works to develope our feelings all through life. I is the observer who perceives through the five physical senses. But this very act of ‘perception’ includes unconscious filtering, predjudices and biases to support what we believe. If this process is unconscious, how sure can we be about the ‘I’ personality we build up through life? How authentic to truth are we?

Whatever ‘I’ is, we can be certain that it rules a great deal of our conscious behaviour; in fact – almost everything.

This is where ‘spirituality’ may start to appeal to a person; to fill this uncertainty and distrust of a fake ‘persona’, accompanied by a suspicion that there must be something beyond personality. The ego is unlikely to admit there is a higher intelligence to it but on surrender of egotistic desires a person can expand their consciousness beyond the everyday.

There are three words which come together to form this expanded version of who we might be; ‘body’ ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’.

It is simple to understand that we are in a body. This was one of the first learning hurdles we had as a baby even though ‘being just a body’ is another of nature’s illusions. You can lose your legs in an accident and still be the same person.

Soul and spirit have various definitions which I shall not explore here. Let us merely propose that beyond our body and senses, there is more that is not within the experience of being me, even if it is mysterious!

In many cultures and traditions the spiritual journey aims to reach an alternative to ego called ‘enlightenment’. Many spiritual leaders claim to have abandoned their egoistic desires and become enlightened. The past remembers such people as prophets and saints but enlightened people are alive today, even if they do not realise it themselves! Perhaps the most beguiling such teacher on the internet is Eckhart Tolle who is candid about his transition into a non-ego driven life and gives gentle and amusing lectures to modern audiences. He does not couch his teaching within terms of any religion unless there is a need to use a specific word or idea. The core of his advice is transferring self guidance away from the ego to the higher self while letting life just happen without needing to control it for desires.

There was a famous Sufi who was stopped by a friend in the street by calling out his name. The Sufi replied, ‘he has gone and I hope he never comes back!’ Dying whilst alive is not part of doctrine in many religions, preferring instead to promise reward after physical death.

In ancient cultures around the world such as Egypt, temples were built mainly for the purpose of placing initiates into a non-egoic state. From here they would leave the body and after three days, just as sun, moon or distant star light fills the chamber, return as a resurrected being. The gnostic Jesus of Nazareth referred to this as being ‘born again’.

One might wonder then what part the ego has in the spiritual quest. Well, clearly the process is not as simple as just abandoning ego.

The truth is that the ego has a particularly strong hold over us, something that it is easy to underestimate. The process of ‘dying’ is anathema to the ego and it will do almost anything to stay alive. Being ‘frightened of dying’ is common for the general population and understandable. We have a choice. Either to be haunted by The Grim Reaper all your life or ‘die before you die’.

The Japanese Samurai in Feudal Japan were spiritually trained as well as being fearless warriors. They entered fights in which they were very likely to be killed for the simple reason that they had overcome the fear of death. What did it matter? The Templar knights in twelth century Europe went through a similar initiation process and were likewise, fearless warriors.

**A Templar Knight**
picture credit Middle Temple

So when a person in modern times takes up the spiritual path and accepts that the final destination is an abandonment of ‘I’ and everything, the ego opens it’s playbook of dirty tricks. It will not give up without a fight to the death.

The most blatant of these is to transfer the feeling of ‘I’-ness into a new, highly spiritual ‘I’ personality.

When the ego is transferred to spirituality in this way, all hell can be let loose!

I once stood at a London rail station with some friends. We looked across the concourse to a large group of African Muslims dressed from head to toe in white robes. They were clearly performing the spiritual journey of the Hajj, bound for Mecca. The pilgrims strict dress code to wear white for humility and yet this group clearly ignored the spirit of the dress code. Their robes were over sized and flowing and their headgear voluminous so as to draw attention solely to project their imaginary high status.

The extremist armed groups of all faiths and political persuasions in modern times are twice as deadly and ruthless precisely because their egoistic sense of being ‘right’ holds power over others. The fact their their evil actions are the opposite of the religion their profess blinds them in a way that only the ego knows how to do.

The Spanish Inquisition operated what we might call today a ‘death squad’ against all the Christian principles of compassion and love, for over three hundred and fifty years.

Even peaceful looking cross legged gurus and self style ‘god men’ in India and other with strong spiritual traditions, may secretly hide the fact that they have simply adopted the appearance of being spiritual for a variety of non-spiritual reasons. These might range from obtaining money and property, sexual exploitation of naïve followers, illusions of self importance and power over others.

Their conman techniques include dressing up elaborately clothing, hypnotic music, chanting and dance, illusory tricks such as surgery without incision, strict regimes of ritual, unquestioning obedience, removal of individuals from family and friends, shaming and praise and a thousand other deceits and conceits. It is the pyschology of the cult which promises a way to overcome personal egotistic desires but replaces them with the egotistic desires of the guru.

When ‘abandoning ego’ we are as vulnerable as a crab without a shell and great care is needed to value the role of the ego as something that keeps us going in a difficult even dangerous world. Ego is not something to be abandoned without something more real and more reliable to replace it. It is after all, the motor that gets us up in the morning and sustains us however frail and feint we may feel.

Perhaps the middle way is not to abandon egoistic ‘desires’ but to come to terms with them in such a way that our ego does not pull our higher self along like a dog on a lead. The path to perfection is to separate our consciousness from the ego as described in gnostic teachings. In this state, the ego must do as it is told be the highest benefit of oneself and others.

There are a series of paintings in Zen Buddhism which describe this process, one part of which is called ‘taming the bull’ where the bull is our ego.

**Taming the Bull** picture credit: thedawnwithin.com

The whip and rope are necessary,

Else he might stray off down some dusty road.

Being well trained, he becomes naturally gentle,

Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.

From “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” by Paul Reps

The rider of the bull is then, that part of ourselves that has become separate and yet still connected to ego or ‘I’ ness. A connection to spirit without destroying the grounding ego gives us, is achieved through strict objectivity in attention and awareness, just as in the expression, ‘in the world but not of it.’

This enables our state of being to move into the ‘higher-self’ or ‘infinite consciousness’; our eternal and infinite connection with ‘all that is and ever shall be’ . It is attained not by the ‘achievements’ that we are encouraged to aim for by society, but by removal of our ‘imitation self’ or ‘personality’. Surrender, non-attachment and the knowledge of forgetting, are just three tools from the wisdom schools of the past which steered seekers of self knowledge long before the modern schools of psychoanalysis and psychiatry.

You are already It, except it is not You.

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Peace Plan for Russia and Ukraine?

14/02/202614/02/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

The following is a description of a process that I believe could bypass the current dead lock in peace negotiations. Today Ukraine is understandably against giving up territory for which it’s soldiers have died and, from their perspective, so is Russia.

On 11 May 2014 referendums took place under the Russian controlled Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics . They asked in essence, whether the population preferred to be Russian or Ukrainian. This initially appears fair towards the citizens as many of whom speak Russian. However, the results were clearly unrepresentative as by then large numbers of loyal Ukrainian’s had fled! The world was given a clear demonstration of how dictators use democracy when and how it suits them.

So, my suggestion is to take another look at this idea of asking the people of these regions the same question, but only after allowing displaced Ukrainian citizens to return safely to their homes and after peace has been declared and sustained. Such a process would have to be supervised by a neutral international organisation such as the United Nations.

This resettlement process should be given an extended period for the social, economic and political ‘dust to settle’; say five years. These parts of Ukraine would remain a demilitarised zone between Russia and Ukraine pending an agreed peace plan for the future. It is wise to acknowledge that Ukraine acts as a buffer zone between Russia and NATO. This has so far kept the two sides apart and long may it be so.

But presently neither Ukraine nor Russia can agree on the border and negotiations involving the United States are deadlocked. In such a case, consulting the people of those disputed regions must be the fairest way to decide.

I would hope that Russia and Ukraine could invite soldiers in a peacekeeping role from non-European and non-NATO countries. The fear of NATO boots so close to Russia is in fairness to Russia, understandable. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 that threatened full scale global war, was produced by just such a move and to repeat it at least in principle, would be to court extending the war for no clear advantage.

Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 picture credit The Independent

When reaching any peace agreement, diplomats work so that all sides are able to ‘save face’ and some sort of compromise is usually involved.

It should be pointed out to Russia that ‘Special Military Operations’ are not able to gain territory because of their self defined limits of operations. In contrast it is ‘total war’ that annexes neighbouring sovereign states as demonstrated by the German Nazis in the second world war. Ironically, we are told that the original aims of Putin were to eliminate Nazi’s from Ukraine and this story has apparently been the reason why Russian citizens are supporting the invasion of Ukraine. The right wing Azov Regiment in Mariupol were rightly or wrongly set up as the objective for Putin’s SMO. But it is clear that the initial invasion of Ukraine by forces on it’s northern border ‘on exercise’, intended to go straight for Kiev, with the intention of taking over the government.

Fundamentally, the two leaders are entrenched, literally and metaphorically over the old or a new Ukraine border. Therefore, I suggest that both sides should forget resolving their border claims at the present time. Instead, the regions under dispute and their populations, should be placed under the protection of a neutral organisation. There will be a promise and expectation to the citizens who live in those areas that in five years time they will be able to vote in a referendum to decide which country has sovereignty in their region. Immigration of citizens from both countries will have to be based on legal ownership of land and property otherwise illegal settlements will spring up as in Palestine!

Since Russia has already shown it’s willingness to abide by referendums over sovereigty, I would hope that Ukraine agrees to the plan. The delay of five years will allow genuine refugees to return to their homes, local and global economies and social services to ‘normalise’ and some stability to return to the regions. It might take ten or twenty years but this can be decided in the intitial negotiations over the agreement. Ultimately people will be able to vote for the system of government they prefer.

A note of caution when advocating referendums. They can be used to advantage as Putin has already shown. He has a precedent as also Adolf Hitler favoured using rigged, manipulated referendums (plebiscites) to provide a facade of democratic legitimacy to his dictatorship.

On the other hand, U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher disliked referendums calling them “a device of dictators and demagogues”. But she did submit to a referendum to decide whether the United Kingdom should join the European Economic Community in 1975.

With this in mind, one should therefore treat referedums as carefully as unexploded ordance; the outcome can hurt! After a referendum result there might be left a substantial minority of disgruntled citizens for whom the outcome did not go their way. We saw this in the 2026 UK referendum over the question of whether to stay in the European Union. The result was narrowly in favour of leaving, a view that has reversed itself since. To avoid division and future instability, I suggest that a super majority is required of two thirds of the population before any result becomes law. The 50/50 referendum rule over Brexit was not open to public consultation. Brexit has illustrated however, that a large minority of disgruntled voters become considerably more political astute and active than a contended small majority and the same could occurr in the disputed Ukrainian territories.

To overcome perpetual border disputes, after a referendum has taken place, those uncomfortable with the outcome could be given the opportunity to move, together with generous compensation from Russia; what one might call ‘special military compensation’. Ukrainians could move to new Ukraine and Russian speaking Ukrainians who support the Putin regime could move to Russia.

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The Mezquita of Cordoba

01/02/202601/02/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Holy Earth, Holy Water, Holy Air, Holy Fire

My first visit to the mosque in Cordoba got me into trouble with the security guard. It was winter and I entered wearing my hat. I was approached and told to remove my headgear. I considered this rather odd as covering one’s head is mandatory in a mosque. But then when you look at the guide book it calls the mosque a cathedral for the reason that there is indeed a cathedral that was dropped as if lowered from outer space, through the ancient roof of the mosque.

As soon as the guard was out of sight, I replaced my hat. Hats on or hats off, women hats on, men hats off, in my heretical view, is a product of imagining unreasonable rules by those who do not know. On that note, the following essay may also appear to be conjecture to which I would humbly request that the reader suspends disbelief. There is much being discovered from our ancient past at this time and buildings such as the Mezquita in Cordoba are perfect places to go and experience for oneself.

If one were to construct a holy building, meaning not just for shelter, it would have to embody both matter and energy. But some energies are beyond scope of scientist’s instruments. There is plenty of evidence of manipulation of energy by and through buildings in the past.

We need not look far for examples. The ancient Egyptian sacred buildings, such as the Osirion Temple at Abydos or the Temple of Luxor, copied the sacred proportions of the human body. The energetic and physical functions of the building were designed to be proportionate to and reflected the energetic and physical functions of the body. Much of the work of the French Egyptologist R.A. Schwaller de Lubitcz gives many examples as in this illustration. The legs are the two lines of columns at the temple entrance working through to the head which is the altar and initiation chambers.

With this understood at least as a possibility, I would like to use the Mezquita in Cordoba in Southern Spain as example of a ‘living’ building energised by spirit.

It is to be found in the old town of Cordoba beside the River Guadalquivir; a waterway that was once navigable to the Atlantic Ocean.

This grand building was built in Al-andalus in Southern Spain between 784 – 987 B.C.E. It was expanded at various times, to accommodate growing congregations. It’s functional layout is similar to a modern industrial building allowing it to grow. In 1236 under the King of Castille and Leon Ferdinand III, the city of Cordoba was captured. The mosque was repurposed as a cathedral.

The Mezquita garden is a landscaped courtyard with fountains and a cistern, presumably once for ritual ablution before prayers. The planting is principally standard sized trees in a regular pattern resembling an orchard rather than a forest. This theme mirrors the rectangular grid of the mosque’s structure. A rectangular grid of columns supports double arches and a high roof.

This then is a brief description of the of the mosque as it appears materially. Now let us move on to consider ‘energy’.

The first thing you notice when entering the mosque are the red and white arches supported by marble columns, recycled from Roman and Visigoth buildings. These columns do not reach the desired height of the roof so a higher arch sits on top of the lower arch. This is an unusual engineering solution but there is a possible explanation that these columns were selected for another reason than for practically. They were made by the Romans from various types of stone but principally polished marble, jasper, porphyry and granite.

All of these stones contain quartz to varying degrees and from the energetic viewpoint, this is significant. Quartz is piezoelectric mineral, meaning that when compressed, the geometric structure of the atoms squeezes out positive and negative electrons producing a voltage across the stone. The voltage is proportionate to the amount of weight on the pillar, hence one might conjecture, the unusual second arch above the first. Structurally, the second arch has no other purpose than to add height and weight, evident because these arches are only used in one direction of the grid where the weight of the roof is supported. This device of increasing weight to increase the electric potential of columns is evident in much sacred architecture. At the Gobleki Tepe temple in Turkey, standing stones are T-shaped, at Stonehenge in England they have lintels and the pyramids of Egypt compress pink granite lined chambers. The ancient Egyptian temples such as Luxor contain an excessive number of columns to support the roof. All around the world and throughout time, sacred buildings are structurally over designed which is in my view is to produce electric potential.

Electricity works closely with magnetism, for instance inducing magnetic fields when an element such as iron moves through an electrified copper coil as in a simple electric generator. We are familiar with electromagnetism but not the as yet undiscovered organic force known as Chi or Prana in the east and Ether or Orgone in the West. It is this as yet unscientifically proven energy that is connected with the spiritual effects it has on the human body and soul.

So to the return the Mezquita, do these arches remind you of horse shoe magnets? Indeed, the typical shape of the arches in Islamic architecture is called a ‘horseshoe arch’. If an arch and it’s two columns are electrically charged, then one column will be positive and the other negative.The grid plan supports this hypothesis, as it connects these opposite electric poles in series, in the manner that batteries are connected to produce more amps at the same voltage. One can go even further if we include the fact that human bodies also contain an electric charge which in a mosque are again aligned during communal prayer. Could males be separated from females not for religious and cultural reasons, but to configure human experience?

Do the red and white patterns in the arches physically mirror the anodes and cathodes in the whole design at least symbolically? If human electricity or bioelectricity sounds beyond scienctific acceptance then the work of Sally Adee confirms we are indeed walking light bulbs!

Any person who has attended an event where a large number of people congregate such as a football match, know that the ‘atmosphere’ during that occasion is not experienced by those who are physically removed from the event and watching on television.

When large numbers of people congregate they are capable of producing powerful sounds. At a football match, the compression waves from the chanting and cheering is capable of boiling one pint of water; a small amount in terms of heat but definitely an effect. So one might wonder whether the compression waves in air from sacred chanting and music is sufficient to produce a piezoelectric effect in stone?

Consider a human body which is constantly vibrating at certain frequencies. Through resonance each person is able to resonate with others during in prayer and meditation. When this is performed as a ritual performance in a sacred building, the context amplifies the effect on each individual. In this way worshippers of any religion have their frequency raised which they experience as an uplifting of spirit in a heart centred rather than a head centred way. Although there is hardly room in this essay, I should also suggest there is the whole subject of healing that has taken place at sacred times and places, sometimes at the level of miracles.

Consider the original plan and physical location of the Mezquita. It is aligned so that the congregation face Mecca in a south easterly direction; 100 degrees and 5 million yards away. Consider the thought that the prayers of the faithful, were directed into the flowing waters of the river Quadalquivir. A controversial scientist of today, Masaru Emoto discovered experimentally, that water records words and thought as changes in it’s molecular structure. Such resonances through prayer of love and beauty may well have been intentional?

Picture credit: Venerable Master Chin Kung

As well as sound we should consider every type of wave in the electromagnetic spectrum. At a lower frequency than visible light are radio waves which in themselves are strongly connected to crystals. The early radio receivers needed no battery, just a quartz crystal, an aerial and electrical earth. An operator could listen to the waves of an radio broadcast using headphones. Conversely, a slice of a quartz or galena (lead sulphide) crystal, works as a microphone in response to sound waves and sends a modulated signal through insulated copper wires. This shows that even a tiny pressure from sound in air produces a response in crystals. A forest of columns containing crystal in a mosque is therefore something not to be underestimated in it’s effects on the human energy field and through that, perception.

Let us look far away for an example as this effect is not as far fetched as it may at first appear. There are in existence thirteen quartz crystals carved into the shape of human skulls.

One such skull is on view in the British Museum in London, England. I have been to view it and found it exhibited on a sultry landing in a stair well. It had been removed from the Aztec gallery on the grounds that some marks from modern instruments had been found on it when viewed under a microscope. The conclusion was made that the skull was made in the same moment of history as these instruments. In my view this is false logic as any object can be altered at any time in history. Work at a moment in an objects existence does not suggest when it was made . It’s the same false logic from archaeologists who find a skeleton in a dolmen and assume the dolmen was made for that burial.

If we can accept that we do not know the age of these crystal skulls then they could be any age including from the Younger Dryas event and even pre-deluvian times.

To quote Daryl Anka from You Tube Twin Flame – the Forbidden Connection;

In Atlantean times the council of 13 would sit in a circle around the master skull and they would sing; they would chant to it. The idea of Tibetan chants is a hand me down of a memory of the idea of using vibrational resonance through chanting to release information from the skull.

In other words, the quartz crystal not only act as ‘microphones’ absorbing sound energy containing information and converting it, but also ‘speakers’, emitting information.

Could granite columns act in the same way when stimulated by the collective chanting and energetic vibration of a congregation? Quartz crystal is silicon dioxide or (SiO2) and silicon is used in the memory of modern computers as a chip. It works by using billions of microscopic switches called transistors on a silicon base to control electrical current, processing data as binary 1’s and 0’s, functioning as tiny logic gates that perform calculations and execute commands.

Whilst granite columns are clearly not computers, could they work in a similar way to store information for later release to following generations?

I shall quote Daryl Anka again from the same video;

The arrangement of the atoms within the crystals is a representation of information storage in terms of how light courses through the crystal…sound can release the idea of information by hitting the right note and pattern / chord key…and it can actually release the information by vibrating the molecular matrix so as to allow the information to come out.

So the key energy in this arrangement is sound and if you consider sacred buildings around the world, sound is an important feature of worship whether it be bells, organ pipes, chanting, choirs, congregations singing and intoning.

A largely unknown and curious example of this are the gargoyles featured on Gothic churches and fashioned as devilish creatures with open mouths. These functioned not only to scare evil entities but to channel rain water but contained within some are precisely carved resonant chambers. These ‘squeeze’ the sound of bells and project it in an amplified form for long distances. Salisbury cathedral in England is an example and the scientific principle used is a Helmholtz resonator.

A Helmholtz resonator is an acoustic device, like an empty bottle, that resonates at a specific low frequency, acting as a mass-spring system where air in a neck (mass) oscillates against the compressible air in a cavity (spring). It’s used to analyse sound (by isolating specific pitches) or control noise (like in mufflers or rooms) by absorbing certain frequencies. The resonant frequency depends on the cavity’s volume, neck length, and neck area.

Source Google AI

Returning to Cordoba and the Mezquita, we know that custom for Muslim prayer is first to perform an ablution. This is not only to remove physical dirt but spiritual dirt in the form of conscious entities known as Jinn in Islam or Archons by gnostics. These can be detached from one’s energetic body by washing and sacred incantations such as the call-to-prayer, prayer and recitation.

Imagine then the possibility that sacred sounds in whatever form are absorbed and emitted by a place of worship and meditation, in the way of a simple microphone and speaker. If one can suspend judgment a little further, then consider this extract from ‘Crystals and Stones’ on You Tube by Bashar,

…crystals – the chamber (in which they are built) resonate in such a way as to imbue to you whatever information they have stored in their molecular matrix that you are open to receiving.

The reference to ‘open to receiving’ is important, as we know that people are not necessarily aware of the effects of unseen energies upon their mind, spirit and body. For instance, the earth emits a sound at the frequency of 7.83hz known as the Shuman resonance and experiments have shown that this creates an Alpha wave state in the human brain.

AI Google gives this concise description of this state of mind. Compare it as you read, the state of mind of congregations at prayer,

Alpha waves are brainwave patterns (8-12 Hz) common during relaxed wakefulness, like daydreaming or meditating, acting as a bridge between focused (beta) and drowsy (theta/delta) states, promoting calmness, creativity, and efficient information processing by inhibiting distractions and enhancing mental clarity…

If quartz in granite columns is recording sound vibrations from nature and humans in sacred buildings, then this information, this memory, is present from the previous days, weeks, months and even years. Are our ancestors talking to us and if this were true, then would you not also record your culture’s information, knowledge and wisdom in some indestructible for those who come after you?

When science has the instruments to measure and interpret information contained in crystal bearing stone such as the red granite lining the inner chambers in the Pyramid of Ku fu, then we may understand the purpose of using such particular stone, because at present we do not.

My experience when dowsing, is that sacred buildings such as the Mezquita in Cordoba are highly energetic. The intention in it’s choice of building materials and construction was in my view, to imbue a received meditative state of mind and feeling of closeness to Allah in those who enter the mosque. There is no need even for worship to be taking place to have this experience for the stone pillars emanate an form ofq bio-electromagnetic energy which is an as yet, undiscovered energy to which humans naturally resonate in their own bio-electric field or shall we say, chakras.

I should include another important source of energy in sacred buildings which is from the earth on which they sit. It is significant that worshippers in a mosque stand in regular lines. They have removed their footwear, not only for cleanliness but also to make sure they are electrically earthed. Some more sensitive souls carry metal tipped walking sticks for this same reason for a build up of energy requires controlled discharge. Beneath the mosque are tellurgic currents associated with water; remembering the mosque is sited next to a significant overground river.

Whilst dowsing in the courtyard gardens, I found a spiralling spring under the present cistern and fountains. Such currents will certainly extend into the mosque itself and connect with the bases of the granite columns.

This energy can rise in a spiral around the columns as depicted in Freemasonry as symbolic columns named Boaz and Jachin. These formed a ‘portal’ into the Temple of Sol-om-on, a ‘third space’ between sun and moon or masculine and feminine in which was to be found completeness.

The Healing Rod of Asclepius picture credit: Greek City Times

It is a fact known to the Knights Templar and Freemasons who inherited the practice from the Ancient Egyptians, that most sacred buildings around the world are placed over global, regional and local nodes of tellurgic current. It should also be noted when considering the properties of granite that it can be naturally magnetic when containing magnetite or ilmenite. The darker or metallic coloured granites exhibit this property most and there are many such columns in the Mezquita.

Many sacred buildings connect visually with ‘heaven’ or the sky by means of a tower or spire. A minaret was added to the Cordoba mosque in 958 BCE. Such high structures were built not only for the call to prayer by the muezzin, but to connect the entire complex with positive and negative ions in the atmosphere, notably moist thunder clouds or the hot dry air of summer. Most dramatically, lightning seeks high buildings to discharge into the earth. This effect was utilised by the ancient Egyptians when they built pyramid topped granite obelisks some of which have been relocated to European cities such as Paris, Rome, London and Washington DC. The city of Washington has an interesting street plan likely to be designed by the Freemasons within which the ‘Washington Monument‘ plays a key role.

Such macro views resemble in a fractal pattern, the layout of micro circuit boards and transistors. Modern science is catching up with ancient science but at micro scale as in quantum mechanics. The statue of a god in the Greek or Egyptian Temple which gods found irresistable to enter, is today known as Artificial Intelligence and is already equally potent.

The pyramid’s geometry both discharges and collects energy from the atmosphere and the heavenly bodies particularly at certain astronomical alignments with the sun and constellations. The pavement surrounding the Great Pyramid of Kufu in Giza is said to have a surface of fulgurite a stone produced by the action of lightning striking the earth.

To ‘reverse engineer’ the energetic qualities of buildings from our past is an inconclusive enterprise. It is hard to convince others as present day knowledge does not consider the energetic characteristics of buildings in any depth. The task of convincing others is left to people who are sensitive and responsive to changes through feeling qualities in their body, mind, emotions and intuitions when entering sacred buildings and places.

It appears to me that we are metaphorically trying to extract the sword of truth Excalibur from the stone of ignorance. Never the less, I do believe that there are many minds open to the suggestion that buildings have a powerful influence upon us and if one of two of the ideas here presented make your gargoyles resonate; listen.

Gaining knowledge from the past and present buildings are a gift to us that we would be foolish to ignore, for when the sword is finally extracted it might well make kings of us all.

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War of Words

14/01/202614/01/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

Words, good slaves but bad masters.

H.G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds, a story about creatures from another part of the Universe invading the planet Earth and how the humans fought back. Words too can conquer worlds, especially the world in your mind. For this reason, I believe it is vital that we choose words that fit exactly the meaning we intend.

When speaking, we like to believe that we use words to converse clearly with others.

If there are no words in our own language we can create new words in fun and familiar ways. This linguistic phenomena is apparent in the speech of young people. New generations invent their own vocabulary with which to talk behind the backs of adults!

The power of language is it’s ability to open new perspectives on life. A restricted vocabulary will limit thoughts to the point that they no longer serve anyone’s best interest.

Words create our thoughts which can in inturn be inhibited by those words. Imagine a map of a city as a model of your neural pathways. Those journeys we repeat, such as to work, become familiar, almost over used. A map is also constrained by it’s boundaries. It does no show the whole world. The unreachable thoughts are as if in another dimension. Logic cannot venture beyond logic.

I listened to a debate on the radio recently in which scientists were challenging each other over the popular conundrum, ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ They conjectured about birds as dinosaurs and an absurd point in time when the first egg was laid. Only one scientist suggested that change is a gradual process when viewed over long periods of time. No parrot changes colour over night. Evolutionary changes take thousands of years before being noticeable. There is no single moment when chickens and eggs come ‘into being’.

picture credit: The Australian Academy of Science

The same is true in astronomy. Do you believe the universe happened in a nano second as the so called ‘big bang’. Scientists are currently theorising that universes expand and contract over vast periods of time. The explosive power of the ‘big bang’ phrase, froze original thinking about how the universe began for decades. The universe was never a chicken, nor an egg…it is obviously both.

Semiotics is the science of language and meaning. In my view, we all benefit from understanding how we structure our thoughts using language and meaning. Here is an exercise;

Imagine a ‘cake’.

There are many categories we can use to describe cakes. There are cakes we sub-categorise by their ingredients such as a sponge cake, fruit cake, carrot cake and oat cake. Then there terms for cake which describe when we eat it, such as birthday cake, Christmas cake or wedding cake. Alternatively the means of production is a description such as home-made or shop-bought. Another way of thinking about cake is the origin of the recipe such as Black Forest, Dundee or French Fancies.

None of these sub-categories describe cake but the word cake includes all of the sub-categories. When we choose which cake is included in which sub-category we use thought to DISCRIMINATE between different cakes. This tool is an important power of mental faculty but unfortunately it’s meaning has changed in common usage. It has become to mean PREDJUDICE and in my view, there is a loss of meaning and ergo understanding, when these two are confused.

Discrimination is an objective skill whereas prejudice is subjective. When we think subjectively we mix emotions with logic. Feelings introduce prejudice for or against something in a way that cannot be explained logically. Insignificant examples are then used ‘prove’ to oneself and others that a prejudice is based on fact in a process known as ‘bias confirmation’.

Bear with me if you think I am stating the obvious but in my view much cultural, ethnic, racial, gender based, geographic, religious and political misunderstanding has it’s roots in how language governs thinking and in particular, prejudice.

A mind which for whatever reason developes a predjudice against a general category of something is in trouble. To use our previous example, it would be wrong to say ‘I don’t like cake’ when what is meant is that you do not like cake with a lot of cream.

When it comes to making prejudices against categories of fellow human beings we hit trouble. Any prejudice is more a product of intolerance, misunderstanding, eliteism, narrow mindedness and other unelightened views in the mind of the observer. However, we hear predjudice views in the news regularly so it is important to unpick how and why they are held.

Consider the term ‘anti-Semitism’. The German journalist Wilhelm Adolph Marr lived at the end of the nineteenth century. He popularised the term ‘anti-Semitic’ to describe anti-Jewish sentiment within political ideology and the general public.

This prejudice towards Jews we know has been present for thousands of years. What was new then was the term, ‘anti-Semitic’. It could be argued that this contributed to the start of the second world war and it remains in common usage today, so did it ever serve the world well?

Let us examine the term. We might question the meaning of the term Semite. Who can define what this means other than an anthropologist? Cynics might suggest the use of the term was a pseudo scientific device to impress and support a prejudice which in turn came from right wing views on eugenics.

Certainly just as ‘cake’ has many sub-categories, so does the word Semite. Historically a Semite might be from a specific geographical location such as Canaan, Judah, Judea, Israel or Palestine.

The term ‘Jew’ is entomologically derived from the tribe of Judea. Then of course there are sub-categories for a Jewish person by religion such as orthodox, conservative or reform. Then there are those who are Jewish but do not practice a religion such as non-practising Jews and those who do not believe in God such as Zionists; who might be Jewish or Christian.

Sometimes language is used to catergorise a ‘people’ and using this categorisation, Semites would be a group who speak Hebrew and / or Aramaic.

The Nazi’s in the 1930’s arbitrarily define a Jew by racial characteristics, not religion, derived from an elitist philosophy of the Aryan race being superior to others on which an extreme predjudice was based.

We might expect a national category of Jew, but the Supreme Court of Israel has determined there is no Israel nationality.

There are other sub-categories of Jewish identity such as by culture, ethnicity and politics, but I hope that I have made the point that the terms ‘Semite’ and ‘Jew’ mean many things to many people depending on what category you choose to define them.

There is a criticism of the term Semite as meaning Jewish by non-jewish people, that it ‘disingenuously’ excludes those who also identify themselves as Semite, such as Arabs. Does the term anti-semite poplarly applied to Jewish people, imply a denial that Arabs are also of Semitic origin?

In my view, the nineteenth century pseudo scientific phrase ‘anti-Semitic’ continues to obfuscate clear thought and sustains predjudice rather than exposing it. It has been used by politicians in particular with the intention including victims of the holocaust and stealing their suffering to gain the moral high ground. Such verbal smoke and mirrors has spawned wars and continues to do so to this day, unquestioned.

In my view, it time to clear our thoughts of words that do not describe precisely what they mean. This is not just a matter of taking sides but simply being clinically clear about where are ideas come from? Are they the product of predjudices? What are the intended and unintended consequences?

To be impartial in a debate that is more a minefield than a cornfield, let us reverse the coin and examine the current term for ‘hatred of Muslims’; Islamaphobia. Again, should we not question the use of this term? Should the psychological term ‘phobia’ really be used to describe a fear of spiders, snakes and Muslims? Clearly confusion, not clarity will result from humans being casually categorised using a word from the science of psychology incorrectly, rather than a clear expression most people understand.

Fortunately, words can serve us to correct such unclear thinking. We can invent new words or phrases in any language and in doing so, say exactly what we mean, fairly and without bias.

It should not be, but if a bigot wishes to describe a group of humans using a term of predjudice, then I suggest that those describing distaste of a sub-category of a human being, should use the prefix ‘anti’. This creates the terms anti-jewish or anti-muslim concisely and without ambiguity. Alternatively, the terms ‘jew hate’ and ‘muslim hate’ in countries where ‘hatred’ is an important aspect of a legal definition and unambiguous to all. The prejudice is clear to all and not spun with fake science. It also makes clear that these are irrational generalisations.

There is a war of the worlds, but it is contained in our heads, not the heads of other people who we may not understand.

In my opinion, the dangerous, self-unaware prejudices that thrive in the emotional biases of current politics, poison the thoughts of otherwise rational and compassionate human beings, and in doing so whole communities. Such hatred of difference is so divisive that it incites violence between one group and another. The simplest example is when governments of countries declare war on each other.

Words are powerful as they form a part of the process whereby we create and sustain our beliefs. How much of the horror that we see in the news today, started as copied or learnt bias, built on an emotional response to an unfiltered stimulus, that slipped under the barrier of compassion towards others.

It is clear to many but sadly not all, that those who express ‘anti’ views in the name of a religion, are not following the most basic rules of the religion they profess to follow.

Fortunately, those who are strongly, even violently prejudiced, are in a tiny minority. The general population do respect and are prepared to learn from, those who are different to themselves. The world’s religions all follow the principle of do-as-you-would-be-done-by.

Speak as you wish to be spoken to

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Holy Smoke

01/01/202604/01/2026 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

And seeing through it!

Burning Francinsense
picture credit Wikipedia

At the zenith of the Julian Calendar we have the festivals of ‘Christmas’ and ‘New Year’.

These celebrations carry warm and fond memories for many westerners. We can trace this back to childhood where children become the centre of attention and adults serve them for a few days; they pretend to be Santa Claus.

If, for whatever reason, you wish to influence the minds of adults for life, then you would start with the child because the child has no filters to prevent unconscious programming. The consumer industry that has grown around Christmas and the New Year suggests, very few adults can see through the smoke and mirrors.

Look objectively at these ‘festive times’. We tell stories to children about Santa Claus and a completely disconnected Nativity which they absorb with relish. And even though these are rather thin and bizarre narratives, children believe them.

Did shepherds really watch their flocks during the coldest nights of the year? Surely this nightly routine is only necessary when the sheep are lambing which is not in the winter months. Angelic hosts? Moving stars? Do kings saddle up camels and set off with other kings and no armed guard and courtiers towards a new light in the sky? And why give a babe in swaddling cloths such inappropriate gifts? Surely, a rattle, a soft toy and a blanket are more likely to raise cheeky smile?

This Bible story has the quality of a dream and in my view, for good reason. For just as dreams are constructed using symbols, so are these stories. Modern Jungian psychology is very comfortable with dream interpretation and symbols, as have peoples from around the world and throughout history.

The Roman church does not advertise that the nativity story is laid over identical ancient Egyptian and other traditions in which a child is born on 25^th December of a virgin mother.

Isis Nursing Horus
picture credit Isiopolis

It’s interpretation of the gifts are as signs not symbols. They suggest that gold was given to show Jesus was ‘Christ the High Priest‘, in other words giving him power and authority, but a symbolic interpretation carries deeper meaning than signs.

In my view, the symbolic interpretation of the story is related to the winter solstice and a solar god rising and setting (Set being a destroying god from ancient Egypt). At this time the sun effectively dies and is placed in the ‘place of the skull’ or Golgotha. The round stone in front of tomb is closed for three days symbolises the sunrise not moving for three days on the horizon. When the sun moves again on 25^th December is resumes it’s daily ascent into heaven.

This is not to say that Jesus the Christ was not a real person, but in my view, Jesus was born in the spring, did not die on the cross and lived his last days as far away from the evil Roman Empire as he could, in the Indian sub-continent, Kashmir.

The Tomb of the Prophet Isa or Jesus the Christ
picture credit Indian Heritage Walks

Surprise to see that there is no Santa Claus in the Bible because his is a symbolic story from another time and place which I have discussed in a previous blog; just as there are no cuddly Easter Rabbits or munchy chocolate eggs at Easter in holy scripture.

Here is a more serious alternative interpretation of the nativity story that might well have been within the teachings of the mystery schools and secret societies.

Consider the three kings as representing the pineal, pituitary and the hypothalamus neuroendrocine glands. These are all within the ‘place of the skull’. We should note that the birth most likely took place in a cave, a symbol of inner consciousness used by Plato, not a stable.

Many believe that much of human experience is ruled by our energy bodies as depicted in Hindu tradition by the chakras. Each month a sacred oil rises in the spine from the solar plexus and the part of the spine we call the sacrum. This is represented as the gift of myrrh from the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus is symbolised by gold, which is a pure, non-tarnishing, noble element, that freely conducts electricity. This charges the oil with golden, solar ions. Lastly the pineal gland secretes frankincense, a precious oil burnt in holy places to symbolise prayers rising into another dimension which becomes visible when the smoke disperses to reveal the source of the light. This was a new light and new consciousness on planet Earth.

I shall move onto the myth of the ‘new year’ in countries around the world which follow the Julian calendar. This was introduced by the dictator perpetuo, Julius Caesar in 45BCE, to replace the ten month Roman calendar. This was a solar calendar for a new sun god, with 365 days and a leap day every four years. It surfaces in the modern names of September, October, November and December (7,8,9,10) and starts on the first day of January.

But this random 1/1 date is not sympathetic with the cycles of nature. At this time, winter is dormant in the natural world. Animals and humans struggle to keep alive. Understanding natural cycles would suggest that the new year should start at the spring equinox when the days lengthen and there is more sun than darkness; a time of renewal and rebirth.

The Roman January god, Janus, had his two views of the world fixed on a melancholy past and an uncertain future. He was not a god of the moment and reality. He was not awake. Yet we celebrate January as the start of the new year, even to this day.

In the Rome influenced west, adults and children stay up until midnight. This hour is known in Wiccan circles as the ‘witching hour’ because at this time, the veils into the human world are opened and spirits may enter unneeded. Spirits are often consumed within an alcoholic drink to start the new year as one means to continue.

The Druid’s magical mistletoe, is used to give protection from such unwanted guests. It’s berries represent sperm and fertility. A future hope or ‘resolution’ is made real by a kiss beneath the mistletoe. It is an evergreen plant, and therefore provides protection throughout the year, even if unkept resolutions do not.

New Year Family Celebration 1950’s Britain

If these interpretations of Christmas and the New Year were explained to the general populace, their ‘programming’ from childhood is likely to resist any questioning; such is the unconscious power of childhood experience. The modern nativity and new year stories occur arbitrarily within the natural cycles. These children stories are unreal but are repeated without question. At the same time, fairy tales and myths (which are real) are described as unreal. This is the looking glass world which Alice ventured into.

In my view, this uncritical retelling of false narratives spills out into popular understanding and even ethics. For instance, exploiting rather than nurturing the natural environment, is a global policy that does not lead to fertile and happy communities. The erosion of natural habitats leading to reduction in the numbers and extinction of many species, I attribute to this dissonance with the natural world. We imagine it will last forever as that suits our modern self pleasing and comfortable way of live, but it will not.

Waking up from a dream is a slow and dizzying process. There are many who are casting aside these children stories that we were coaxed in our innocence with gifts and jollity to believe in. If our outer and inner ‘nature’ is ever truly understood, humans have a chance of being brought back from the abyss of shallow and false beliefs.

When there are ‘forces’ that do not serve your best interests and highest desires you are being suppressed.

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As Within So Without

10/12/202513/12/2025 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

“Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you”.

Friedrich Nietzsche

What Nietzsche does not say in this famous quotation from his book ‘Beyond Good and Evil’, is that the monster you perceive making faces at you, is you.

This slightly heretical philosophical view of mine, suggests that our internal world (mind) creates the people, places and things we experience. By extension, for those who believe, humans create God in their own image, because creativity is an attribute of Divinity which they share and reflect.

You are not a person living a life, you are life living a person.

When we look back at our forefathers and ask how they dealt with this conundrum, there are two paths. One is to be blind to the illusion that we must surrender to a higher will or ‘fate’. Alternatively, not surrendering to fate empowers each individual to become the power that is within us and resist all attempts to submit to ‘the Abyss’.

This second option is taken by very few souls, for the hero (which is you) has to venture far from the comforts of home to an unknown place. Consider the humble Bilbo Baggins in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as he pulled the heavy Saturnine ring from his finger and threw it into the flaming Abyss. The Whispering One was destroyed and homely order restored.

The metaphor of looking into an abyss was used in a more gentle way for children by Lewis Carroll in his book, ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’. Alice’s hallucinogenic encounters in a reversed universe reads as a series of random thoughts and dreams, each jostling for centre stage in Alice’s mind; a type of madness but with it’s own rationale.

Most of the time Alice is vaguely in control of people, places and things. The reader expects a happy conclusion to the story, but as in life, there is always doubt and the fear of horror.

Jalal Udin Rumi refers to this shattered fractal world as what we might see in a “broken glass mirror”. The metaphor refers to the profound idea that ultimate Truth is one, but when it “fell and broke from the hands of God,” people grasped fragments, each glimpsing a fragment of the whole. There is a paradox here because whilst the part is not the whole, it can be mistaken as such. In reality it is the reflection, the message which is the whole, not the physical fragment.

Religious followers are an example of this literal ‘my partial truth’ mentality. They think they know it all but are deceived. Yet there is a commonality to all human experience. Every person sees through the thin skin of their eyes, the cornea. It is transparent and admits all it sees; good and bad. It is our mind that filters and checks what we see in the trillions of connections it makes continuously; a process that dictates and reinforces our personal and randomly biased out-look on life. This is the human frailty of perception which keeps out some or most of the Divine light.

Bashar is an entity channelled consistently for decades by Daryl Anka and for those who are curious his public Q and A sessions are available on You Tube.

To conceive, receive, and perceive in Bashar’s teachings refers to how we can actively create a personal ‘reality’. We conceive a whispered idea or feeling as like a soft touch from outside of our body. This may simply be what time to eat or an inspirational idea that is life changing. Whatever we conceive in our higher Self, from the alpha to the omega, we have the option to be as God the Creator. Making lunch or making the Universe comes from the same Source and is the same.

The second stage of this process is when we receive the idea into our brain and integrate it into our lives. Bashar advises that this is something that must give us our greatest excitement. No working in a factory, unless you love repetition!

Thirdly, our mind must be aware of perception which is like a faithful horse that we groom daily from childhood. Whilst it provides the feeling of freedom and long journeys into the wilderness, it also limits how we experience life. The world we encounter is a reflection of our consciousness. What we think, we see.

There is an saying by Thoth, Hermes or Hermes Trismegistus which has long been treasured by secret societies is;

‘As within, so without, as above, so below, as the Universe, so the Soul.’

Let me show you three qualities of a symbol.

The horizontal line is the line between Heaven and Earth. Just like the mirror between water and air.

The vertical line is the boundary between what we experience as ‘Self’ and what we perceive as ‘not-Self’. This is the illusion we experience as I-dentity.

Where these two lines intersect is the location of the ‘I‘ or ‘eye‘.

In astrology the 90 degree angle is called a ‘square’ or ‘quartile’. When planets share the same quadrant of the zodiac they conflict. One might say they do not see eye to eye. A right angle is discomfort and sure enough we find the cross historically as an instrument of crucifixion. This was not just a Roman engineering solution for crucifying thieves but also those who threatened their evil Empire with the power of the individual.

The Christ was preaching to people that they contained a ‘light within’, when Rome wanted only Rome to be the light, just as the Empire endeavours to keep things today.

The Roman Empire Continues to Strike Back
picture credit; Architectural Digest

The light – a solar light as within the god Apollo – long before Jesus the Christ – is symbolised by a circle encompassing the four equal lines of the cross within. In my view this symbol is one way of ‘squaring the circle’. This ancient logic puzzle that transfixed the Ancient Greeks has not been solved using geometry, but by moving towards a less logical conclusion. Poetically, the four straight lines can become the parts of a square within the circle. The four / four beat is a masculine marching rhythm that needs to be smoothed and soothed by the feminine, represented by the all embracing circle.

Even the Ancient Egyptian Ankh is a version of this archetypal geometric paradox. It represents the unification of the masculine and feminine coming together as one, in order to align with and receive the Solar spirit of the Divine.

An Ankh in the Petrie Museum University College London

As within, so without, is less quoted than as above, so below. But it expresses the ability of humans to manifest, make real, a reflection of our highest aspirations. This might manifest through a series of unexplainable co-incidental events and chance encounters. If we powerful humans did not believe we can direct chance, we would not play the national lotteries.

The words, ‘serendipity’ and ‘coincidentally’ and ‘synchronistically’ describe this human experience of good or bad fortune. But who is making these choices, Divine Will or us, or both?

We have all been in a situation where we cannot decide what to do. We want a good outcome but do not know how or the best way to achieve it. If you believe in your own creative power as ‘a reflection of God’ then making the best decision is alignment with one’s higher Self.

Tossing a coin may appear random but if you toss three coins several times, you are allowing serendipity to speak to4 you. Oracle cards work in this way and are increasingly popular in Western society today. Personally, I believe they are an aid to personal choice, not makers of choice.

In some cultures the power of the unknown to influence events is described as ‘fate’ but again, I disagree with this concept. To accept fate is to give away one’s own power. Usually, this personal abandonment of responsibility attributes failure or success, solely to the Divine; Mashallah (ما شاء الله).

This ‘victim’ mindset is not endorsed by professional gamblers in Los Vegas. They will have amassed a strong self belief to the extent that they feel they can do nothing wrong. When a such ‘card shark’ or player ‘on a roll’ appears at the tables and starts winning, the management do not stand a chance.

**Gambling on a Dream**
picture credit Nevada Public Radio

We give away our power constantly. Even prayer can be, in my view, an act of giving away personal power to a ‘higher power’. When things don’t go as requested people lose ‘trust’ or ‘faith’ in Divinity, as if prayer is like a menu for you to order food.

If we accept that we are a tiny fragment of the mirror which is God, then man is indeed made in the image of God. We are His reflection and have god-like attributes and abilities that are obscured until we become a polished mirror.

The Taoist and Zen Buddhist concept of polishing a mirror symbolizes the spiritual practice of purifying the mind and heart to achieve clear, undistorted awareness of reality and connection with God or Mind.

As the Universe, so the Soul

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Love Life Lust

25/11/202528/11/2025 / Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me / Leave a comment

The Traffic Lights Within

I have recently written two essays on ‘Physcial Enlightenment’ and ‘Spiritual Enlightenment’. The former is a rarely discussed subject, certainly amongst spiritual seekers. My point was that both are not only valid but complementary.

But in a western culture that thinks in dualistic terms, there will always be the question, ‘which is the most important?’ Even in spiritual countries such as modern and ancient India, ‘godmen’ have perched themselves on top of poles or stood on one leg for literally years, thinking this was a suitable way to deny their physicality and ergo, increase their spirituality.

This is in my view, nonsense but stay there if you want to.

My sideways sliding mind brought up the famous formula of Albert Einstein and a philosophers permutation of it;

SPIRIT = PHYSICALITY (c2) or E = M (c2)

I will also give credit to Alan Watts for a lecture ( now on You Tube) he gave on why saints struggle with lust. I don’t usually pick over the bones of someone else’s feast but Alan structures his talks so superbly that I shall credit to him because his ideas remain very relevant today.

The subject of lust has of course remained taboo in polite western society for many hundreds of years, repressed largely to it’s own detriment (almost suicide), by the Church.

The irony is that those who seek to become spiritualy awakened and do so, also awaken their sensitivity to everything in the physical world. We are all, after all, spirits in an animal body.

The Temptation of St. Anthony by Hieronymous Bosch c.1501

Alan points out that with spiritual awakening induces a desire to withdraw from the world. The shallowness of values and the platitudes of conversation do not contribute to the compelling desire to know oneself. Silence and contemplation are the tools of those with this particular desire and naturally find a place and a way that enables them to do this.

It is my belief that humans are strongly controlled by their ‘chakras’. I assume I need not explain what chakras are so that when I use traffic lights as a metaphor for chakras, readers will understand.

I assume red appears at the top of automatic traffic signals as it can be seen from the furthest distance, and is the only one of the red, amber, green, that causes harm to motorists if not seen.

Let us reverse their order however and place the red light at the bottom, keep amber in the middle and place green at the top.

These three chakras, base, sacral and heart are of great interest for the purpose of this essay. The red base chakra covers our strong connection to ‘tribe’ and family and the amber sacral chakra to basically, lust and animal desire. These two chakras show our bodily physicality and how it connects us with ourselves and those around us, family, friends, lovers, colleagues, leaders, employers, politicians…you get the picture.

Yet our green heart chakra transcends all of this. It is concerned with non-instinctual desire namely, love. This is expressed as love between humans, love of nature, beauty, and our strongest excitement, Divine love.

To sustain the metaphor, these signals are changing within us all the time, red, amber, green and in doing so affecting our behaviour. As much as the traffic controller may want to, there is no point in being on green all the time and creating traffic chaos. We go up and down switching on and off our desires in response to our affairs. Importantly, as one becomes spiritually awakened, the lights get brighter and demand constant attention.

The consequence is that spiritually guided people become unconscious beacons to other people and entities. The latter includes thought forms who exist in other energetic dimensions where there is a vacuum of love. Prayer, choirs, bells, holy relics, smoke, smells, statues, architecture, geomancy, flags, gongs and other devices are employed by religions to dispel these demons from sacred places. The grinning gargoyles on mediaeval cathedrals are the embodiment of these forces that circle us day and night. Gremlins, Demons, Archons or Jinn, wish to shame and ultimately destroy spirituality awakened humans. The power and prescence of saints in any ‘tribal’ congregation is a threat to demons because ‘love conquers all’. They want to pull you down into the red and amber light and keep you there; the red devil. Their desire is to drain your battery to the last few volts.

It gets worse. A spiritually awakening person has to fight their inner demons as well. Since birth our inner lights have been frustrated and dimmed by various spiritual and emotional wounds. I remember crying on my last day of primary school when I realised I would never see my dear friends again. These were children with whom I had grown up, including one, Fiona, who I had literally been born with in the same hospital and ward. I have a photograph.

Alan Watts explains that spiritual awakening brings ‘old pains’ to the surface, such as loss, fear of abandonment, shame, fear of no love. Lustful pleasures sooth these wounds even if only temporarily. For a ‘holy’ or ‘noble’ person seeking the highest enlightenment and benefit for others, these lustful fantasies can be an embarassment if ever aired publically, depending on how unconventional, immoral or illegal they are.

Priests in the Catholic church are an example of how the desire for sexual pleasure, can become perverted and hurtful towards young impressionable children. Royal families live with the same threat of such practices becoming public. Watch out for public figures who fear media ‘intrusion’ and make ‘no comment’ responses or invent and supress ‘facts’ or create a ‘distraction’ or ‘protest too much’, when challenged by journalists and prosecutors.

The present theatre of tricks being played out in the politics of the USA around the love-less characters of the late Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell will, allegedly, reveal a full picture of perverted lust running amoke amongst an international elite, cheered on by All American demons shaking pom poms and pocket cameras.

Sprituality is not an easy path. When the highest faculties of all the chakras are awakened the challenge is to face inner and outer battles of the highest intensity. As my old teacher used to say, ‘immortality has to be earned’.

Arch Angels such as Michael carry shields and swords because this is war. Spiritual awakening unleashes human weakness of the same order of magnitude; in the words of Alan Watts, ‘as if the soul seeks balance’.

Here is what Alan suggested to overcome this dilema;

Stop pretending this battle does not exist. Flesh is real and desire is real.

Stop fighting alone. Isolation is the trap that feeds the beast. Find another who is non-judgmental with whom you can be honest. This is not confession, it’s illumination.

Attend to your old wounds – acknowledge the pain and the painful work.

Be present when you feel desire but do not act on it (this is very hard).

Do not suppress shame as this only delays advancement.

Take the middle way which allows you to be present with the feeling but not to give away your energy pursuing and enacting it.

Alan’s view and remedies are principally the way of Mahayana Buddhism. It teaches that a seeker of inner transformation must merely watch dispassionately as life rolls by to overcome desire. The adoption of extreme views (as presently seen in the USA and other countries) is not being dispassionate but passionate.

In my view there is more one can do to have the strength to carry the whispering ring to Mount Doom.

We are guided if we will, by the ‘green for go’ light as a symbol of the human heart and the love it attracts and sends out. For the Sufi’s, this is the dwelling place of Divine Love in the human body. As Divine love is by definition everywhere it is therefore within all of our chakras or centres of consciousness. Divinity is present in our most lustful desires and moments as humans share animal desires and pleasures. Sufi saints were allowed to have one or even more wives, although they did not always. The ‘sin’ of pleasure as seen by some religions, creates guilt and shame which then, only priests can forgive. Life in these religions puts ‘sinners’ on a see-saw of ‘moral and immoral’ judgement favouring only those who use this to weild power over the faithful.

But when we resonate with Divinity we allow our attention to focus on the Divine Prescence within, or in modern terms, ‘our higher self’. This focus is one of being ‘in the world but not of the world’. It is neither moral nor immoral, just being Self.

Noah and his wives collected the animals when the world was in flood. Instead of being overwhelmed and drowned by the great flood of all consuming energy which was water, he and his sons constructed a boat that floated above death and destruction.

Being an Arc is in my view the best strategy for survival in a time when there are great metaphorical floods of anarchic and parasitical energy, pervading and interfering with the normal balance of nature, the affairs of man and ultimately our spiritual well being.

So, build a boat and after great storms a small bird will land in front of you and place down a spray of green leaves from an olive tree, and the waters will slowly receed to reveal a new Earth, to observe from high.

Matters Blog

Original thoughts on a variety of subjects that matter to me

Author: Matters Blog - Things that Matter to Me

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Word War

The Democracy Spectrum

I is for Ego

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The Mezquita of Cordoba

War of Words

Holy Smoke

As Within So Without

Love Life Lust